For the past few months, the Newport News/Hampton Chapter has been busy formulating our next campaign and helping our neighboring chapters with their campaign efforts. We recently joined the Norfolk Chapter for their rally with Suffolk and Eastern Shore in February. It was great to see so many people engaging the public as we brought awareness to health care needs including lowering the cost of prescription medicines. The rally also highlighted the need for childcare and better infrastructure, and we thanked Senators Warren and Kaine for their support! Thanks to chapter members Lucy and LaChere who came out. If you were unable to attend, please consider participating in our next rally!

We had the chance to speak with our local delegates’ offices during our 2022 Lobby Days. Our chapter met with Delegate Price’s Chief of Staff on Monday, February 7th and Delegate Simonds and Senator Mason’s office on Thursday, February 17 to speak about our Statewide Priorities for the year and our local issues. We also discussed some of the bills that arose during this legislative session. Both offices were open about sharing the resources they had available to address some of our priorities.

We are going to be making public statements on Tuesday, April 12 based around our campaign on housing insecurity. If you would like to speak on homelessness or housing needs please contact Sarah. Chapter leader Jay will be speaking on transparency issues with Newport News City Council and Cher will be speaking specifically on homelessness.

Lend your voice! If you or someone you know has a personal story to share, this is a good opportunity to be heard!

We are working on our April Community Event, which will be held on April 28th at Pearl Bailey Library from 5-7 p.m. We are looking to partner with local non-profits also working on housing and homelessness. If you have a group that should be part of our event, please let us know.